A Sickening Storm, page 8
C3 and Sarah looked at one another, concerned.
Charlie grinned. “Chris’s selling herself short.”
Sarah changed the subject. “Is Vanessa still working for you?”
Charlie nodded. “Smart woman. Picked up proofreading fast, and apparently has an English background. She even does some copy editing, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she ends up writing, too.”
Christine shook her head. “Woman’s been through so much.”
Sarah agreed. “I’ve heard her refer to Jesse as having been her other half.”
C3 nodded. “Agatha’s hurting, too. Losing a sibling’s gotta be brutal—and a twin.”
Charlie looked into his glass, swirling his drink. “Vanessa was well on her way toward a real estate career, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she sticks with us. I hope she does.”
“Dora still watching her kids?” Sarah asked.
“I think so,” Charlie answered.
Christine looked wistful. “There’s another one who’s been through a lot. She adored Franny.”
“I see Dora around town with that librarian,” C3 observed. “Are they a thing, now?”
“I think they are,” Charlie said.
“Good for her,” Christine affirmed with a loving smile at her husband. “Nothing wrong with love.”
C3 glanced toward the dining room. “What are we having?”
Christine glanced upward, thinking. “Let’s see. Caesar salad, shrimp oreganata, pasta with olive oil and basil, artichokes, and cheesecake.”
“And Sarah’s brownies,” Charlie added.
“Oooh,” said C3 eagerly. “I’ve always found Dora a little scary. Angry, even.”
His father turned to him. “She lost the love of her life.”
Christine corrected her husband. “I’m pretty sure she was angry before that.”
Charlie nodded in acquiescence. “You’re right.” He shrugged. “Seems to work for her.”
Christine agreed. “I used to see her around City Hall. She was—I don’t know if angry’s the word—fierce, maybe. But it was a kind of cheerful fierceness, like ‘Hey you, over there. Shut the fuck up and sit down.’ There was a bit of a smile in it, though.”
“Losing Franny had to have—” Sarah swallowed, tearing up. She had been close to Franny too; they had shared a love of classical music and literature. C3 took her hand, squeezing it. He knew her pregnancy left her frequently emotional.
Charlie broke the silence. “So, son, you going to keep your sobriety this time?”
C3 turned to his father. “So, Dad, you going to break my balls in front of the world this time?”
Charlie laughed. “Probably.”
C3 didn’t laugh.
“Want to hear something fucked up?” Christine lowered her voice conspiratorially. “Beach City Medical is honoring Jeremy Anderson at their gala this year.” Everyone looked at Charlie, who nodded stoically. Jeremy Anderson owned the only other ad agency in Beach City.
Charlie groused, “He’s donating $3.5 million toward a new infectious disease wing.”
“And Antoine Julienne’s matching that donation,” Christine added, still looking at Charlie, who had picked up his drink and drained its contents. He got up and went to the bar to pour himself another.
“Easy, Dad,” C3 said.
“Shut up, son.”
Christine raised her eyebrows, looked at Sarah and C3, and nodded toward Charlie, who returned to his seat.
“What?” C3 asked.
“Guess who has to give them the award and make a kiss-their-ass speech at the gala?” Christine said.
“You?” Sarah covered her mouth with her hand.
“The hospital’s still your client, right?” C3 looked at his father, who didn’t answer. “So…guess you’ll be making a lot of pre-dinner ads.”
“Are they naming the wing after Anderson?”
Charlie didn’t answer.
“We don’t know,” Christine answered for him. She grimaced and pinched her nose between her fingers.
“You okay?” C3 asked. Christine waved him away.
Sarah looked briefly at Christine, then at Charlie, then shrugged sympathetically. “Well, I have to run those ads.”
Charlie gave her a grateful look and raised his glass. “To Jeremy Anderson, who is an infectious disease.” He drank while everyone watched. Eventually they followed suit.
Christine gave him a stern look “Put on your big boy pants, honey. I have to hand him that award.”
“Trust me,” said Sarah, “our article will sound like an obit.”
“So, C,” his father began. “When do you see yourself getting your counseling job back?”
After a quiet pause, Christine stood up. “Let’s move over to the dining room, and be sure to stop and watch the surfers.” She nodded toward the floor-to-ceiling windows. “They’re having some kind of fall tournament, I think. Lots of tricks.”
C3 hid his hurt expression as he stood up. “So, Dad,” he said quietly, leaning close to his father, “are you and Christine expecting yet?”
Charlie stopped, turned, and glared at his son.
Later that night, Charlie was sitting up in bed, reading The Chronicle on his iPad, as Christine slid under the covers next to him.
“Well, that was a success,” he mused without looking up.
Christine looked at him, then undid her robe and let it slip from her shoulders. “I call it a success anytime we get together with your son and his fiancé.”
“I guess your migraine’s better.”
“Mm hmm.” She lay down next to him and slid her hand down beneath the blanket. “And one success deserves another.”
Charlie closed the iPad and laid it on the floor next to his side of the bed. “I can’t disagree with that.”
Afterward, Christine donned her robe and went into the bathroom, making sure to hide the full vial of birth control pills before she returned to her husband.
• • •
George Campbell looked at the blinking light on his phone and tried to will the ringing to stop. He knew who was calling and why. Matsumoto, who lived in his cloistered little world of medicine, was calling to tell him to take drastic action because of the new cases. Challenging medical cases, patients with hard-to-treat symptoms, happened every day. Many times a day. Disruption of the rest of the hospital’s function was absolutely not the answer! He knew just as well as Matsumoto did about their responsibility to the public, not to mention to the Department of Health. He shared Matsumoto’s deep concern for the well-being of every patient at the BCMC. But he also had a bigger picture to consider. One patient or two, or even five could not determine the healthcare policy of an entire community. They would deal with these problems, these cases, just as an army general deals with an enemy attack. Together, the BCMC team would strategize, marshal their forces, and counterattack. Their pathologists, epidemiologists, phlebotomists, and specialists in every field of medicine were the best in the New York metro vicinity. They would not surrender. They would not shut down any aspect of hospital function. No. As far as he was concerned, it was that sort of weak thinking that had led to the bottom falling out of the COVID pandemic.
What was needed was courage. What was needed was staying the course. What was needed was inspired leadership—of the sort that was at the very core of his, George Campbell’s, character.
Chapter 9
Andy Schwartz struggled to breathe. It was a struggle with which he was familiar, since he had lived with asthma and frequent pneumonia much of his life. He was also diabetic and morbidly obese. It was the diabetes that had led to his hospitalization this go round.
His breathing came in shallow gasps, and within each gasp was a little involuntary vocal cry that was the result of the extreme constriction of his airways. His symptoms seemed to confuse his nurses and doctor, which terrified him far more than did his symptoms. He was here for his diabetes, but his caregivers were talking about meningitis and encephalitis. How could that be? What was going on? Did anybody in this place know what they were doing?
He felt the ripple in his neck and had no time to consider its cause. As he tried to swallow, he began to choke, but the ripple had become a convulsion that moved outward from his neck to his face and chest. He thought faintly of the call button and then, strangely, of his brother, Jack, and a treehouse they had built together decades before. Andy had loved that treehouse and slept there often during the summer when Andy was ten and Jack was twelve. A family of cardinals had made their home on a branch not far from that treehouse.
Andy’s last thought was a memory of that family of cardinals, chittering away, and waking the two brothers up on summer mornings after their campouts in their beloved treehouse.
• • •
Dora was showering after returning from a visit to Shay’s MMA. She loved mixed martial arts and had begun training at Shay’s several years earlier, once she discovered her natural aptitude for the sport and for self-defense in general. The sport was an effective outlet for her seemingly bottomless pool of anger—a rage which had taken root in her childhood when she had often witnessed her mother begging her father to stop beating her. While he had been physically rough with Dora a number of times, he had regularly and violently taken out his frustrations, guilt, and self-loathing on Dora’s mother.
Dora had little interest in therapy, which had been forced on her as a child; the experience had been, to her mind, an exercise in blaming the victim. Mixed martial arts was much more effective at dispelling whatever it was she was feeling; that she might be displacing those feelings was, for the moment, of little concern to her.
She was showering and thinking about the session that had just ended when she heard Freedom barking. “Be right there, Freedom!” she called, but the dog continued to bark. “Okay, I’m coming!”
She stepped out of the shower, wrapped a towel around herself and took one step into the hallway. She barely missed the large, fresh, fetid gift her new best friend had left in the hallway just outside the bathroom.
“Freedom! Your name doesn’t mean you have the freedom to poop just anywhere!” She went back into the bathroom, slipped into a robe and slippers, and began cleaning up the mess, making sure to tie the garbage bags closed. She saw with satisfaction that Freedom had retreated to her bed, a round, soft cushion with low fuzzy sides that would keep her warm and cozy as she slept. The Doberman Rottweiler mix watched her new owner clean with what Dora imagined was guilty silence.
A buzzing distracted her; Dora’s cellphone was ringing from her bedroom night table. The I.D. said Geller Investigations.
“Hello?”
“It’s happening again. Can you call Missy and get down here right away?”
“I’ll have to see if she’s working. Either way, I’ll be right over.”
Fifteen minutes later, she walked into Adam Geller’s office, was ignored by Thelma as she walked past the office manager, and sat down in one of the chairs adjacent to her new boss’s desk. For once, Adam was not watching TV on his iPad, but was typing into a computer.
“I’m making notes based on the call I just received from George Campbell. They have another two cases. Where’s Missy?”
“Working for two more hours. I’ll fill her in, unless you want her to come by later.”
“No need. I’ll print this out and go over it with you and you can do the same with her. If you have any questions, just call me, or better yet, ask Campbell or Matsumoto. Hang on.” He finished typing and printed out three identical sheets of paper, two of which he handed to Dora.
“Tilda Tolleson was in the hospital last week for an abdominal resection. She has Crohn's disease, which causes inflammation of the digestive tract and can lead to abdominal pain, diarrhea, fatigue, weight loss—”
“I get it,” Dora said.
“She’s a third-grade teacher,” Adam went on, “not that that’s relevant. She had to have a piece of her intestines removed and a colostomy bag attached.”
“Okay. So what happened to her?”
“She came down with something called,” Adam paused, glancing at his computer screen, “African trypanosomiasis, also known as African sleeping sickness.”
“Whoa. Is she alive?”
Adam nodded. “For now, but she’s in bad shape. The disease is usually fatal unless caught early, and Campbell said they’re not sure they caught it in time.”
“What are her symptoms?”
“Fever, terrible headaches, exhaustion, swollen lymph nodes, and body aches. Her mental state is affected, which indicates that the disease has progressed, perhaps too far.”
“So, what’s next?” Dora asked.
“There’s a second case.”
“Shit.”
“Andy Schwartz, age twenty-seven. An obese man—and diabetic. Married to the love of his life. Came down with something called Hendra virus, which tends to come from a particular species of bats. Usually found in Australia—and no, he had never been there. Mr. Schwartz is only the eighth known human case.”
“Ever?” Dora asked.
Adam nodded and pressed his lips together. “He passed away this morning.” He checked his screen. “He died of pneumonia. He’d had asthma, which may have been a contributing factor to his demise, but make no mistake—it was this Hendra virus.”
Dora sat back, momentarily stunned. She looked down and scanned the information Adam had given her. “We’re really in the deep end of the pool here.”
“Campbell is freaking out because this means the hospital might receive bad press, be forced to cancel their gala event—”
“And won’t receive those big checks.” She shook her head, amazed at the man’s upside-down priorities.
Thelma’s voice sounded from the front of the office. “You should never have taken this on. It’s an impossible case! You should have stuck with divorces. The hell do you know about medical cases? I said it from the beginning—stay in your lane! I hate to say I told you so!”
Adam’s answer was equal in volume but milder in tone. “I tend to agree, except for one thing. You love to say I told you so.” He rolled his eyes and looked at Dora, his gaze fixed and focused. “I’ll tell you what’s next,” he said. “Back to work. I’m pretty sure the hospital needs to report this to whatever medical authorities they answer to—perhaps at the county or state level, perhaps the CDC and, given the possibility of this being a crime, perhaps the FBI.”
Dora considered this. “I thought you needed an interstate aspect to call in the feds.”
“You can always invite them in to help, and given the threat to public health and Campbell’s priorities, I think it makes sense in this case—before more people die. I’m going to call him back to discuss. Why don’t you call Dr. Matsumoto to see what else you can learn, before you fill Missy in once she gets back.”
Dora rose to go. “Understood. Will do.”
• • •
According to the woman who answered his office phone, Dr. Matsumoto was unavailable, but as Dora was driving home a few moments later, her phone rang.
“Ms. Ellison. Akira Matsumoto. When I heard you called, I wanted to get right back to you. I know about the new case.”
“Two cases, I’m told.”
“I know about the teacher—African sleeping sickness, but the other—yes, I see. Mr. Schwartz. Hendra.” He sighed. “I’ve been explaining to George about the precautions we will be taking, and changes to our operating procedures I believe are necessary.”
Dora pulled into her parking lot. “Like sealing off the affected areas of the hospital?”
“Much more than that. The problem is that George wants to wait before doing anything—draconian, to use his word. He understands that we have medical protocols we need to follow, but he’s concerned about the hospital’s image and an event we’re holding just before the holidays.”
“I take it you disagree.” She found a parking space and shut off her car. There was a slight pause as the call transferred from her car’s audio to her phone.
“My job is caring for our patients. I’ve reached out to the chairman of the board and asked that they convene an emergency meeting. Until then, there’s nothing I can do as far as the public’s access to the hospital. As far as investigating these cases as criminal—I don’t know. I’ve thought from the outset that the notion seems awfully far-fetched. George and I disagree on this point.”
Dora let herself into her building, took the stairs to the third floor, and entered her apartment, as Freedom gave three ecstatic yips and bounded forward. “From what I’ve been told,” she surmised, “the cases themselves are awfully far-fetched.” Freedom jumped up on her hind legs, and did what looked like a little dance, her paws on Dora’s chest. “Aww, good girl. Good to see you too!”
“Sorry?”
“Oh. I just got in; I’m talking to my dog.”
“Yes, these cases are extremely unlikely. I don’t like to say impossible, because, after all, here they are. But criminal? I find that hard to believe.”
“You’re a doctor, not a private detective.”
“Point taken. Let me give George a call—try to reason with him, then call you back.”
Dora clipped the leash onto Freedom’s collar and they went together back down the stairs and out the front door. Dora’s phone rang again.
“I saw you called.” It was Missy.
“Yeah. Two more cases. Two more diseases.”
“Oh, no!”
“I just spoke to Matsumoto. He’s getting pushback from Campbell about making changes to hospital procedures. Campbell’s afraid of the impact on their wallets.”
“Wonder how the families of the infected patients feel about that.”
“Exactly. One died, the other’s hanging on. Matsumoto’s trying to get the hospital board together for an emergency meeting. He’s also going to try to talk some sense into George Campbell, then get back to us.”
“I’m on my way over.”
“Great. See you in a few.”
